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Rock

A Summer Road Trip through Finland

by Benjami of Maa ilmasta

Maa ilmasta
Photographed by Tero Ahonen


Since the 1960s, Finland has had a rich tradition of instrumental rock, jazz, and fusion led by world-class musicians and groups. This tradition possesses unique stillness and melancholy, characteristic of the Finnish mindscape. Influences from folk music can often be heard, where the most delicately composed minor chords tell stories of beauty and joy rather than sadness.

Luova Records continues this tradition by releasing the second album of my band, Maa ilmasta. The title of the album is Kaunis kesäkaupunki, ’beautiful summer city’. The name is humoristic in a very Finnish, ironic way. More than a genuine description of a specific city, the statement can be used as a cheap compliment for essentially any Finnish city—even the less outstanding ones.

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Fake Artists

by PH Mazza

PH Mazza - Fake Artists


The story behind “Fake Artists”, although still recent, dates back to mid 2019 where I was invited to go to one of those hipster parties in an abandoned loft called “Solar dos Abacaxis”, something that the artistic bourgeoisie loves to turn into a stage for events (kind of like a reference to the Berlin experience, but which is already dated by the clichéd pedantry of this same privileged/intellectual bubble).

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What I’m in it for

by Adrian Sood

Adrian Sood


Music has always been an integral part of my life. I have been writing it since I can remember. Nevertheless, I feel I am only beginning to understand it now in my more mature years.

I’ve tried my hand at all different styles and genres. That’s important to do if you want to grow as a writer. I’ve been in and out of bands through the years but writing and recording is it for me.

Thats what I’m in it for.

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Automatic Songwriting

by Alison Eales

Alison Eales


I have just released my first solo album. It is called Mox Nox, a sundial motto that means ‘night, shortly’, and the theme running through the record is the passing of time, particularly the transition from day to night. Rather than writing songs specifically for the album, I looked through my songbook for things I had already written that fit this theme, and one of them (now called The Broken Song) jumped out at me as being a bit of a curiosity.

I’ve always been a night owl. I can be absolutely exhausted at 10pm, but by 11 my head will be racing with ideas. The Broken Song began its life during a nocturnal writing session, and its original lyrics made direct reference to being up all night. The song was clearly relevant – but it was also an underdog, half-written and still wearing its working title. I hadn’t thought about it in years.

Looking over the lyrics, I remembered that I had always liked the verses but struggled to come up with a chorus. I’ve never been too worried about following a verse-chorus structure, but I knew this song needed more, and I knew that it was stuck. The breakthrough came when I deleted my crappy excuse for a chorus and looked at the lyrics that were left. Quite suddenly, I saw that the song I had thought was about a particular event in my life was about something else entirely.

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30 Years of Originals

by Pedro Alsama


My mother used to say that when I was 2 or 3 years old, I was a little pest, but when music was on the television, it was silent; it was peaceful at home. I was absorbed in what I was wanting to do forever. Music.

I started my sound adventure learning sounds; I created them around me with a k7s recorder. I walked around the house reporting where I went, something like: “And now this is the sound of water, and let’s all listen…” turned on the bathroom faucet “listen, it’s the water singing…”

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Seeking Out the Unbeaten Track

by Ian C. Thomas of Busker’s Dog

Ian C. Thomas of Busker's Dog


Music ebbs and flows, back into time immemorial and forward into the unknown future. I was late to the party, learning instruments and theory as a self-funded young adult long ago.

After many years of compiling former band and personal demos for my own interest, I thought it was time to finish an album for release. Sea to City began with a bunch of “lost” songs from other abandoned collaborative projects and a cover concept. The songs seemed to join hands as a thematic collection, so I then wrote into the spaces, and painted the cover to go along with them.

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Life Our Own Way

by David Heatley

Life Our Own Way by David Heatley

I’d never been to Louisiana, never seen New Orleans, never been out on the Bayou. It was May of 2021 and here I was driving in the middle of the night to a town called Breaux Bridge, out past Baton Rouge, deep in the middle of rural Louisiana farmlands—what they call “Cajun country.” I arrived at a big, rundown house and was greeted by Mark, the producer of my new record (released Feb 11 2022 on Dream Puppy Records). We had only communicated by email and text up til this point and now here he was—grinning, talking a mile-a-minute, introducing me to the semi-stray cats, describing the armadillos that would come around if he left the cat food out over night in the garage: “nasty fuckers.”

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A way to connect with yourself

by Irene Sánchez

A way to connect with yourself by Irene Sánchez

Music has always been said to be a universal language, but I don’t agree. Music has as many meanings as people who listen to it. What for us can be a sad melody, for someone from the other side of the world, it can be the happiest of songs, that’s why I refuse to believe that music is universal. However, I don’t think this is a problem, but an advantage to be able to communicate with ourselves. Art shows us the reality that we need to see.

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Gan Focal

by Mark Wilkins

Gan Focal by Mark Wilkins
Life during the lockdown and one finds oneself turning to the online world for community, support, and solace. The pandemic is a global phenomenon after all, and it would seem by the swell of blogs and posts on social media that millions of people the world over are doing the same. Social media explodes with information, disinformation, misinformation, distraction, and instruction.

One of the most shared posts by the online artistic community tells me ‘use the pandemic and the new reality to write that song, that novel, that screenplay you’ve always wanted to’ but this merely serves to impose a feeling of guilt -after all learning to adapt to the restrictions is difficult enough without the added pressure of trying to summon the muse and create new music.

What if I have no new ideas at my immediate disposal to inspire new tunes or fresh ideas to share with other musicians, let alone an audience?

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„93-105”, my new album, my old story.

by Adam Majdecki-Janicki

93-105, my new album, my old story. by Adam Majdecki-Janicki

The album costs 3 euro, but took 18 years to make, of course, not continuous 18 years, but I wouldn’t record such music without living my life as I did since 2002 when I started recording cassette tapes with my friend in a high rise block in Poznań, Poland. The block’s address was 93-105. So, now you all know what „planet 93-105” means. And high rise blocks are really like separate planets, at least in Poland…

And cassettes are beautiful items, surviving years and owners, and „93-105” is now not only my block’s address, an imaginary planet, and album title, but also a beautiful cassette released with Illuminated Paths, USA, and this full circle of space and tapes, and my life April-July 2020 is what this story is all about a sound story. A sound story best experienced on cassette.

So go grab a copy of „93-105”, and feel like it’s 2002 in a Poznań, Poland high rise block, or elsewhere in the galaxy, wherever imagination takes you… this cassette is yours, not mine, now. And 18 years are gone, but it feels like light years…

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